


Her Shining and Her Grace

by Ayulsa (execharmonious)



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Esper Terra, F/F, TEAM SHIVA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-21 19:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/execharmonious/pseuds/Ayulsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wanted to write a collection of Esper!Terra/Celes ficlets, but I needed seeds of ideas to base them on. So I filched quotes from another of my favourite stories, <em>The Last Unicorn</em>. This is the result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Innocent and Wise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stealth_Noodle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stealth_Noodle/gifts).



> For the prompt of "esper!Terra interacting with other characters".
> 
> _I was long ago, someone strange_   
> _I was innocent and wise_   
> _And full of pain..._   
> _\--The Last Unicorn_

"Don't go." Celes reached out her hand to the glowing pink figure, who was already tensing, the air prickling with magic as she held the spell that would strip her of her second skin. "Don't-- change. Not yet."

Terra turned back to her, slowly, warily releasing the magic, its edges flickering between her fingers before vanishing completely. Celes' shoulders sagged in relief, though her hand still hovered in mid-air, poised to stop Terra if she tried to flee. Not that she'd catch her. Even if she could be faster, the Esper would flow from her grasp like flame.

"You always change," said Celes. "You never let me see you like this." She softened her voice as much as possible. "Why?"

Terra's frame was perfectly, almost unnaturally still, but her eyes looked Celes up and down, and her nose-- was it twitching? "You're afraid of me."

"Afraid?" Celes almost laughed, but managed to hold it back. Of the things in this world that could faze a former general, she'd encountered more than her share; but Terra was not among them. "I'm not afraid of you, Terra. Why would you think that?"

"My senses tell me," said Terra, sounding perfectly certain. "Your breath is shallower. Your skin is salty... cold, with sweat. Your lips are dry." Celes found herself licking them selfconsciously; it was true, they were. "I can hear your heart beating fast."

Celes closed the distance, lacing her fingers into thick shoulder fur. It felt like a bear's, and quite unlike any tame creature's: coarse and protective on the surface, but with a silken-soft undercoat that was exquisite to the touch. The urge to sink her fingers in deeper, no, to press her face against that soft layer, was maddening.

"Terra," she said patiently, "those things don't always mean fear."

"They don't?"

"No." She touched her nose to Terra's, their lips a breath apart as she spoke. "They don't."


	2. Nothing Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _I can feel this body dying all around me!_  
> 
> _There are no happy endings because nothing ends._   
>  _\--The Last Unicorn_

She struggled to hear his voice above the breaking of her body, the bloodrush in her ears as every cell protested that what was happening was _wrong-- Wrong!_ This _couldn't_ be happening, not like this...

_My dear Terra... I'm afraid this is goodbye._

Her head spun violently as claws shot out and lanced her palms, the pain insignificant compared to the tearing inside her. Her body was on fire, screaming to be heard above the voices chanting _you cannot be, you cannot be, you are two halves that will be torn asunder._

She would not let that fire go out.

_Espers will vanish from this world. Being part-Esper as you are, you may too..._

Now her voice took up the screaming in chorus. This was more than death, more than vanishing: this was being rent in two. She could not survive divided, she knew. Not now she had finally become whole.

"I don't want to die!" Her voice was a howl mixed in with the wind. "I don't want to die like this! Don't let me die!"

Celes staggered forward across the listing deck, clasping Terra's shoulder. "Not on my watch," she growled, though there were tremors in her voice. She half-knelt, half-collapsed next to Terra as the ship lurched once more, brushing the damp, glittering hair from her eyes.

Maduin's voice was fading fast, though from his weakness or her own, she couldn't tell. _...if, as a human, you have found... something precious to you... Then you may, as a human, remain..._

"All of her is precious to me," Celes called back into the wind; the only other one who could hear the Esper's voice, though it was to the Goddesses, or whatever remained of them, that she spoke. "Human and Esper. She comes with us whole or not at all!"

The last thing Terra saw was blonde hair whipping in the wind, white cloak rippling as armour glinted: the profile of a Valkyrie in battle crouch, one hand on her hilt and the other on her lady, challenging the heavens for her sake.

A strange calm falling over her then, as if some dread spell had been unravelled at last, she let the world fade to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maduin's dialogue is from [Lina Darkstar's annotated translation](http://www.icyforums.com/index.php?showtopic=4401&st=1050).


	3. I Know You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I know you! I knew you as soon as I saw you on the road coming to my door. Since then, there is no movement of yours that has not betrayed you!_   
>  _\--The Last Unicorn_

"Even after all this time," Edgar said, prodding the remains of their campfire with a stick, "I admit it's hard for me to believe sometimes that Terra's really a half-Esper."

"Why do you say that?" said Celes.

Edgar looked at her strangely. "You don't think so? I mean, she's been through a lot, to be certain, but... underneath it all, she's really just a normal girl."

Celes barely restrained a snort, turning it into a polite cough at the last moment. _Oh, Edgar. This is why you're nowhere near as much of a ladies' man as you like to pretend._

Perhaps it was true that Celes had an unfair advantage. They'd grown up in Vector together, and though she couldn't remember ever having heard that Terra wasn't human, some hint or rumour could yet have made its way into her subconscious. But to her sight, everything about Terra had always been different. The way she walked, graceful yet gangly like a yearling deer; the way she stood, almost on tiptoe, as if scenting the air for danger; the way she tilted her head when curious, went perfectly still when frightened, moved over crumbling cliffs with the surest of steps: all of it had lent her a strange mien, which she could not place until she'd heard, from Ramuh's own mouth, that Terra was half-Esper, and then she'd known it was true at once.

Different, and yet the same. Because though Terra carried herself like no human she'd known, something about the way she moved reminded her of herself. It was nothing visible that they shared: Celes' movements were perfectly schooled, military-precise-- she could never afford to let anything slip. But when she looked at Terra, she almost wanted to. There was something in that easy grace, that wild abandon, that she envied. And something deep within her, so deep that she could ignore it for most of the time, envied it more strongly yet.

For if it was easy to forget that Terra was half-Esper, it was even easier for Celes to hide her beast. She spoke of it seldom, gave it free reign never. But an Esper slumbered in her still, a cold serpent coiled at the base of her spine, a lion waiting to raise its shaggy head. And whenever she looked at Terra, she felt it stir, and look out through her eyes.

It would know her anywhere.

She wondered if Terra knew it, too.


	4. But First They Must Catch You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Love is slowing you down, my lady. I will catch you at last, if you love much more._   
>  _\--The Last Unicorn_

She ran on through the blackness, pushing blindly through briars and brambles, her only thought to guard them from gashing her face as she scrambled deeper into the undergrowth. Her arms bloomed red with scratches, red as the flowers she'd trampled in her haste, now muddied and matted between the grooves of her boots. Soon her pursuer would scent her blood on the wind. Then it would all be over.

She heard the cracking of twigs behind her, and her heart jumped, forcing one last surge of adrenaline through her veins. She'd been outfoxing the girl for ten miles now, and she knew she couldn't keep this up, but she would at least go down fighting. Shielding her eyes once more, she charged forward--

\--and lodged her boot in a rabbit hole, bringing her crashing to the forest floor. Her cheek hit a sizeable slab of rock on the way down, and she swore, tasting blood in her mouth and on her lips. She was all over blood and mud and dirt, in fact: leaf litter clumped in her tangled hair, black smudges under her eyes that had nothing to do with camouflage. Her shirt was ripped at the collar, exposing the beginnings of a bruise-- and, a moment later, a handprint, as Terra triumphantly slapped a cold, wet palmful of mud against Celes' sternum.

"Got you," said Terra, looking down at her prize from the privileged position of several inches above the ground. She wasn't dirty at all, nor bruised: the magic she was throwing off healed her wounds as soon as they formed, and her aura blew away all the leaves, seeds and assorted gunk that had accumulated on Celes. Yet she looked utterly in her element, a forest sylph whose shimmering outline seemed to blend with the trees and sky, as if she'd always been part of this wood. And she seemed to feel it, too: the expression on her face was nothing short of exhilarated.

Or maybe exhilarat _ing_ , Celes thought as Terra floated down to kiss her, her tiny pink tongue lapping the blood from her lips with a tenderness that sent shivers through her. She wrapped her arms around Terra and felt claws brush her cheeks in response, heated palms cupping her face as fingerpads ghosted gently over her cuts, erasing them at once. The tingle of the _cure_ spell went almost unnoticed amidst the general glow of Terra's magic; the feel of fur tickling her collarbone; the gradual press of plush warmth against her as Terra released herself from the _float_ ; the scent of cedar, the chirps of cicadas, the cold mud trickling down into the runnel between her breasts...

...and the rock stabbing into her lower back, but that was okay. It only hurt a little. She was sure she could find _something_ in all this mess that would take her mind off it.


	5. In The Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _In the sea..._   
>  _Do they know?_   
>  _Where do unicorns go?_   
>  _Where winged horses fly..._   
>  _Narwhals lost at sea, and never seen again..._   
>  _\--The Last Unicorn_

Celes had often favoured the ocean, when she'd had a choice of places to be. The grey, frigid seas north of Narshe had been a beloved spot of hers, partly because no one else came. When it was just her and the slowly drifting ice floes, the occasional gull calling overhead, the thick fog isolating her from the land around, time seemed to slow to a halt, and nothing in the outside world seemed as pressing. It was a kind of peace she rarely got to experience, then or now.

She'd found soon enough, however, that she wasn't the only one who liked the ocean. One evening, after they'd made camp along the Imperial coast-- it wasn't that any longer, but that was how she was used to thinking of it, and how she always would-- she'd wandered down to the shoreline and found Terra already there, pink and shimmering and staring out across the sea.

Celes smiled to herself and picked up the pace, scrambling up the splintered cliff-remains where the Esper had perched.

"Hey," she called when she reached the summit, wiping off her hands on her pants. "Wasn't expecting company. So you like it out here too?"

The faintest of smiles crossed Terra's features, then faded again as she returned her gaze out to sea. For the longest time, she was silent. Then, when Celes had almost given up on a response-- almost-- she said, "I was always fascinated by the sea, when I was a child."

Celes sat down on the shale beside her, turning her eyes to the ocean as well. Even in this ruined world, its rhythmic motions were predictable, comforting, like a heartbeat. She'd missed the sea.

"They took you there?" She couldn't imagine Terra ever having been given privilege to travel.

Terra shook her head. "I never saw it... not until I was older. But I saw pictures, read about it in books. It always seemed like this endless..." She motioned with her hands, searching for the words. "Like there were... so many possibilities. A whole other world out there, under the water. There could be anything there. Things I couldn't even imagine."

 _Freedom,_ Celes thought, watching Terra's face contort with the memory. _Hope. Things you couldn't imagine, but that you should never have been denied._ She glanced around them at the coastline, the once-proud cliffs collapsed into rubble, the carcasses of animals washed up on the shore. _Things the next generation may grow to live without, if we cannot halt this madness._

"I used to wonder," she continued, "if there were others like me out there. A race of people living beneath the sea, or far beyond it." She smiled slightly, almost as if apologising for her story. "I suppose I wanted to feel like I wasn't the only one of my kind."

 _You're not,_ Celes wanted to say, but she held her tongue. Could Terra accept someone like herself, made in a laboratory, as a true half-Esper? She didn't know, and she'd never asked.

And yet, as their journey wore on, she'd come to feel like Terra was more _her kind_ than anyone else she'd known. They alone understood magic, Espers, from within. They alone had beasts that sang in their blood, shining and majestic.

In lieu of words, she took Terra's clawed hand in hers, pressing it tight.

_You're not alone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to put Bismarck in here, but I couldn't think of where.


	6. Sisters, You And I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Set me free. We are sisters, you and I._   
>  _\--The Last Unicorn_

She imagines, maybe too often for her good, what it would be like to be like Terra. To be like her in every way, capable of letting the Esper inside her take over, run free.

In the daylight she dismisses it as foolishness, of the type children are prone to: _If I were an animal, what would I be? If I were a monster, what would I be?_ But when night falls, she lets the formless shapes inside of her slither over her mind and tries to put names to them, faces. _What would I be?_

At first the images come haltingly, as if shying from her: a flash of fin here, a slitted pupil there. But she persists, and eventually she can call them up at will: images of herself furred, feathered, frost-wreathed, fearsome, fang and claw and wing and tail and too-bright, knowing eyes.

She's sure she's imagining it: the forms are too inconsistent for her to not be. Or maybe the Espers' shapes are only artifice. When she's awake in the darkness, she doesn't care. The idea of it, of wearing on the outside that which prowls on the inside, entrances her.

In her mind's eye, she is a lion, sand crunching beneath her paws as they pound the shoreline, magic making her bulky frame feel light. She is a bird of prey and paradise, diving, chasing, the inhospitable mountain peaks her solo playground. She is a dragon, armour impenetrable by sword or spear, guarding a treasure with hair as green as moss and eyes of cobalt blue. She is a siren, a mermaid, a swordfish, a blue whale, frolicking with Terra in the eventide, luring the half-Esper under, under, down to her watery home.

She encircles Terra with her thick tail, delicate fins belying powerful muscles, scales sliding smooth as sin across sea-soaked fur. The djinni spars with her in return, sinking needle-sharp fangs into her scaly flesh, scoring clawmarks down her human torso, bare as the sky. Her blood mingles with the frothing tide; she nips at Terra's lower lip, tasting her blood in return. Taloned hands find her hair, rake it free of seaweed as she runs her nails over Terra's back. Terra growls agreeably, though underwater it's a burbling sound.

They play until exhausted, letting the tide wash them up on daylit shores. There they lie, arms around each other, straddling her world and Terra's: the sun-warmed sand and the chill, fathomless deep.

At last she breaks from her reverie, though a strange emptiness follows her into the night, and throughout the next day.

When she kisses Terra next, she bites, and draws blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this](http://katchan00.tumblr.com/post/56857559519/i-drew-a-mermaid-that-is-totally-absolutely-not). More Esper!Celes than Esper!Terra, but that's because Esper!Celes was totally my headcanon even before I played FFVI. Fact.
> 
> Back in the 90s, I was fond of a SNES magazine that tended towards rather literary analysis of JRPGs (if you don't remember this, it's because you're not from the UK. If you are, and you're the right age, you know which one I mean.), and by way of being poetic, they once described Celes as "no more human than Terra or Kefka". I took it literally, and from then on, it's been headcanon.
> 
> Also, this one wound up in present tense somehow. Oops. I don't think it would work any other way, though, so I'm keeping it like this.


	7. No Move That Was Not Beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _For a moment she turned in a circle, staring at her hands, which she held high and useless, close to her breast. She bobbed and shambled like an ape doing a trick, and her face was the silly, bewildered face of a joker's victim. And yet she could make no move that was not beautiful._   
> _\--The Last Unicorn_

Zozo had smelt of dirty rain, of wet garbage and decrepitude, but the air in this room had ozone's tang and a weight palpable, yet not oppressive. The dusty, footworn carpets and bare minimum of furnishings betrayed its location in the world, but Celes hardly noticed. To her second sight, the room was a palace, decked in draperies of fuschia and gold.

She felt Terra before she saw her, huddled against the taller figure who everyone else mistook for a human; but he was no more human to her eyes than Terra was. How could they all see a mere elderly man where she saw eyes ablaze with electric sparks, a staff that could command the wrath of the heavens? His features, though human superficially, seemed carved from stone, each line and wrinkle a lightning-slash into granite, their shadows deep and dark. This was no frail elder that stood before them, but the gauziest of veils thrown over a primal beast.

_Ramuh... Ramuh the Esper._ She'd studied enough of magic, what scant literature remained from the pre-War days, to know his face. And in his arms, the pink and shining creature who was Terra. Terra... the Esper. How could she not have known?

While the others gaped at the changes in Terra, Celes saw only the familiar. She was unsteady on her feet, clearly clinging to Ramuh for support; she stood faltering, tip-toed, pacing in place, as if pins or knives were under her. Her shoulders were hunched, the fur on them raised-- _hackled,_ she realised-- as if to defend herself from some predator. Her mouth moved in mute attempts to speak, exposing long canines and an animal's tongue.

But none of it looked strange on her, or graceless, or wrong. She looked like a new fawn finding its feet-- shaky in her motions, yes, but natural, growing stronger and surer with every step. And in the skin of that fawn lay the makings of a hart: a creature of unparalleled nobility and poise.

She couldn't help but be enchanted by it, even as she worried for Terra. The girl, by stark contrast, didn't seem to recognise her fellows at all. The only one she showed knowledge of was Ramuh, whose beard and clothes she tugged and scratched at as if trying to communicate something locked deep inside. From anyone else it would have seemed disrespectful, almost blasphemous, but Ramuh showed no signs of caring: he just continued to gentle Terra, stroking her back and her mane as if she were a child. This, too, seemed natural, that Terra alone was permitted a closeness with Ramuh of which the others would not have dreamed.

"She is afraid of what she is," said Ramuh, noting the concern on Celes' face.

_I wish I could tell her,_ thought Celes, _that she's the most beautiful being I've known._


	8. Art Interlude: Ramuh and Terra

Ramuh protecting Terra, from _No Move That Was Not Beautiful_. 

His staff-topper thingy is somewhat ambiguous in a lot of art, but I thought it looked like a lotus, so I decided to make it one. The lotus is associated with the opening of the mind to transcendent realms, with spiritual purity and growth. (See if you can spot the other bit of occult symbology. :D)


End file.
